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ASSYRIAN EMPIRE ENDS

glass had been taken from before the great slabs which represent the building of Sennacherib's palace, and a workman was kneeling in front of one of them with a bucket of water by his side, and in his hand a scrubbing-brush, which he was using vigorously....When asked if the marks, of which he was trying to get rid, were not caused by fire, he at once agreed but looked surprised at the next question: "Do you know what you are doing? You are trying to wash away the evidence that God's Word has been fulfilled. Those marks of fire are the proof of the fulfillment of prophecy!" Pointing to the book in my hand, in which were pasted passages of Scripture illustrated by the monuments, I showed him the prophecy of Nahum about Nineveh (Nah. 3. 13, 15): "The fire shall devour thy bars... there shall the fire devour thee." This prophecy, uttered many years before the destruction of Nineveh, was actually fulfilled, Nineveh was destroyed by fire, and the evidence was before our eyes. The overseer, who was also in the gallery, was greatly interested in these passages of Scripture; and although the workman continued his scrubbing, we did not think he tried quite so hard to wash the charred stone. He had already found that he could not get out the black stains. When God fulfills His Word, and pours out His threatened judgments, it is vain for man to try and obliterate the traces. Neither the soap of science nor the scrubbing-brush of philanthropy will remove the marks of the fire of God's judgment.

ADA R. HABERSHON, The Bible and the British Museum, pp. 34, 35.

37. Was the Bible prophecy that the Assyrian Empire would end fulfilled?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Isaiah 14:24, 25 (712 B. C.)-The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying,... That I will break the Assyrian in my land,...

Ezekiel 31 :3, 10-12 (588 B. C.)-Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, . . . Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him:...

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

In 606 B. C. Nineveh was captured by the combined forces of the Medes and Babylonians, and Assyrian supremacy was at an end. Home and School Reference Work, Vol. I, p. 176.

If it be borne in mind, in addition to all this, that the buildings of the Assyrians show them to have been well acquainted with the principle of the arch, that they constructed tunnels, aqueducts, and drains, that they knew the use of the pulley, the lever, and the roller, that they understood the arts of inlaying, enamelling, and overlaying with metals, and that they cut gems with the greatest skill and finish, it will be apparent that their civilisation equalled that of almost any ancient

FATE OF ASSYRIA WARNS

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country, and that it did not fall immeasureably behind the boasted achievements of the moderns. With much that was barbaric still attaching to them, with a rude and inartifical government, savage passions, a debasing religion, and a general tendency to materialism, theywere towards the close of their empire, in all the ordinary arts and appliances of life, very nearly on a par with ourselves; and thus their history furnishes a warning-which the records of nations constantly repeat that the greatest material prosperity may co-exist with the decline and herald the downfall-of a kingdom.

RAWLINSON, Five Great Monarchies (2nd ed., London, 1871), Vol. II, p. 244.

DANIEL "FURIOUSLY ASSAILED"

CHAPTER VII.

MODERN BABYLONIA.

38. Was there ever such a man as Daniel of the Bible?
BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Daniel 2:48-Then the king made Daniel a great man, . . . Mathew 24:15-When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

The book may be divided into three parts. The first chapter forms an introduction. The next six chapters, 2-7, give a general view of the progressive history of the powers of the world, and of the principles of the divine government as seen in the events of the life of Daniel. The remainder of the book, chs. 8-12, traces in minuter detail the fortunes of the people of God, as typical of the fortunes of the Church in all ages.... The book exercised a great influence upon the Christian Church. The New Testament incidentally acknowledges each of the characteristic elements of the book, its miracles, Heb. 11:33, 34, its predictions, Matt. 24:15, and its doctrine of angels. Luke 1:19, 26.

The authenticity of the book has been attacked in modern times. (But the evidence, both external and internal, is conclusive as to its genuineness. Rawlinson, in his "Historical Evidences," shows how some historical difficulties that had been brought against the book are solved by the inscription on a cylinder lately found among the ruins of Ur in Chaldea.-ED.)

SMITH'S Bible Dictionary, Teachers Edition, p. 136.

Authenticity of the book. Daniel has been furiously assailed. The attack began with Porphery, a pagan, born in Syria, A. D. 233. And it rages still. Only the briefest outline of some of the arguments in support of its genuineness can here be given.

(1) The book claims to have been written by Daniel. In the last six chapters the author uses such phrases as,... "I, Daniel, alone saw the vision;" "I, Daniel, understood by books," etc. These chapters are inseparably bound up with the first six. The pertinent question is, Are these statements true? He would be reckless indeed who would impeach the author's veracity, or charge him with forgery.

(2) Josephus affirms that Alexander the Great was shown the prophecies in Daniel concerning himself by the high priest Jaddua,

DANIEL ON TRIAL

49

and the conqueror was so delighted that he offered to confer any favor on the Jews. Alexander antedated Antiochus more than 150 years.

(3) Daniel and his three companions are referred to in I Macc. ii, 49-60, in such a way as to lead us to believe the book was extant when this apocryphal writing was composed.

(4) Ezekiel testifies both to the existence and character of Daniel, XIV, 14,20. .... and no one doubts the authenticity of Ezekiel's book.

(5) Our Lord sets His seal to the reality of Daniel's official character and the truth of his predictions, Matt. XXIV, 15. Christ teaches that this prediction of Daniel still remained to be fulfilled when He uttered the memorable Olivet discourse, i. e., more than a century and a half after the time of Antiochus.

(6) The records of ancient Babylon as deciphered by archeologists harmonize with the statements of the prophet. In many minute particulars Daniel has been vindicated by modern research. The words of M. Lenormant deserve serious attention: "The more the knowledge of the cuneiform texts advances, the more is felt the necessity to revise (correct) the too hasty condemnation of the book of Daniel by the German exegetical school," (La Magie, p. 14).

W. G. MOOREHEAD, D.D., Professor of Old Testament Exegesis, United
Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Xenia, Ohio, Outline Studies in the
Books of the Old Testament, pp. 276-278.

(1) With Enoch, the seventh from Adam, and for three hundred and eight years contemporary with Adam, the voice of prophecy began to be heard through human lips. For so the apostle Jude declares: "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,... Jude 14,.... This sublime and earliest prophecy reaches to the end of time. And through all the intervening ages, other prophecies have covered all the more important events in the great drama of history.

(2) The coming to pass of these great events has been but the response of history to what the prophecies had declared....

(3) It is for the purpose of calling attention to some of these important prophetico-historical lessons, if we may be permitted to coin a word, that this volume is written. And the books of Daniel and.... are chosen for this purpose, because in some respects their prophecies are more direct than are to be found elsewhere upon the prophetic page, and the fulfilments more striking...

No sublimer study can occupy the mind than the study of those books in which He who sees the end from the beginning, looking forward through all the ages, gives, through his inspired prophets, a description of coming events for the benefit of those whose lot it would be to meet them....

There seems to be no prophecy which a person can have so little excuse for misunderstanding as the prophecy of Daniel, especially as relates to its main features. Dealing but sparingly in language that is highly figurative, explaining all the symbols it introduces, locating its events within the rigid confines of prophetic periods, it points out the first advent of the Messiah..., and gives so accurately, and so many

50

DANIEL PRIME MINISTER?

ages in advance, the outlines of the great events of our world's history, that infidelity stands confounded and dumb before its inspired record.... With thrilling interest we behold to-day the nations marshalling their forces, and pressing forward in the very movements described by the royal seer in the court of Babylon twenty-five hundred years ago,. URIAH SMITH, Daniel and the Revelation, pp. 3-6.

...

Although Daniel lived twenty-five hundred years ago, he is a latter-day prophet. His character should be studied, for its development reveals the secret of God's preparation of those who will welcome Christ at His appearing. His prophecies should be understood, for in them is the key which unlocks history to the end of time.....

Years before this, when Egypt was the educational center of the world, God taught Egyptian senators by the mouth of Joseph, a boy no older than Daniel. When Babylon had outgrown the counsels of Heaven, another Hebrew meets the men of the schools. "Can not the wise men show the secret unto the king?"

Before Daniel was the king in his glory; around him stood the very teachers with whom he had studied three years. At this time were exemplified the words of the psalmist: "I have more understanding than all my teachers; for Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts.'

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Nebuchadnezzer was careworn from loss of sleep, and in great anxiety because the dream troubled him; but Daniel was calm, conscious of his connection with God, the King of kings. Daniel now had opportunity to exalt his own wisdom, but he chose rather to give all the glory to God. He plainly told the king that it was beyond the power of man to reveal the dream or give the interpretation; "but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days." The king's mind was directed to God alone.

In one night God revealed the history of over twenty-five hundred years, and what the human historian requires volumes to explain is given in fifteen verses.

S. N. HASKELL, The Story of Daniel the Prophet, pp. 15, 36, 37. 39. Could Daniel easily have lived as Prime Minister of Babylon, although his name is not "found as yet upon the documents dating from the sixth century B. C."?

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

There will be discussed in this chapter the definite claim of the late Dean Farrar that such a man as Daniel could not have existed because his name even has not been found as yet upon the documents dating from the sixth century B. C. It will be shown, that it is not certain that Daniel, under his new Babylonian name given him by Ashpenaz, the prince of the eunuchs of Nebuchadnezzar, is not mentioned upon the records of Babylon; and, also, that even if it be not mentioned, this affords no presumption against the existence of Daniel, inasmuch as the kinds of records that have come down to us could not have been expected to mention his name..... Moreover, unless some new kind of document should be discovered, or unless the library containing the contract tablets of the bank, or office, at which Daniel trans

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